1: Road Rage
by Evelyn Brightpaw
Summary: The first in my series of Joker/Harley scenes, heavily influenced by the Animated Series episodes "Mad Love" and "Joker's Favor." Set just after Harley has broken J out of Arkham, and thus before my scenes "Makeover" and "Bruises." More scenes to come!


_"By the way, hon, we're having meatloaf tonight."_

Charlie glared at the screen on his dashboard; the word "meatloaf" sounded disgusting enough – whoever heard of a _loaf_ of _meat_? Cows weren't loaf-shaped. And it sounded even more disgusting when it was coming at him through the car's Bluetooth speakers, making his wife's voice sound tinny and mechanical. Then, of course, after he got the disgusting picture of soggy, mashed-up, baked meat out of his head, it was replaced by an image of Meat Loaf the rock star. Charlie stuck his tongue out at the display screen. He hated meatloaf. The dish and the singer.

"Why meatloaf, Sarah?" he cringed. "You know I don't like it."

_"Well,"_ came the computerized reply, _"I just found out that Mom's coming in from Ohio, and you know how she—"_

"Oh, gimme a break!" Charlie sighed. As if today hadn't been bad enough. The raise he had been hoping for hadn't panned out; the company he was auditing was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, and in with the mob, no less, which put a target on his back; they had moved that snotty, annoying Lowe guy to the cubicle next to him at the office; somebody had dented his back bumper and hadn't left a note; and now his _mother-in-law_ was visiting. Great.

_"Charlie,"_ his wife was saying. _"I'm sorry, but… well, you know how she likes to show up unannounced."_

"Yeah, I know…." Charlie mumbled, eyeing the tractor-trailer in front of him. "Hey, listen, Sarah, I've gotta get off here. Traffic is crazy today. I can't change lanes and talk at the same time. See you at home?"

_"K. I love you."_

"Love you too, baby," Charlie answered, then he heard the click as she hung up. "Even if you are letting that old hag stay with us," he added as he shut off the Bluetooth. "Now, to get out from behind _this_ guy." After a quick glance at his mirrors, he flicked on his turn signal and began easing over into the lane on his left.

_WHOOSH!_ The little black car came out of nowhere, cutting Charlie off and narrowly missing his side mirror. He watched it zoom on ahead; it was a sharp-looking black Volkswagen Beetle, the kind his daughter had been wanting and was certainly not getting because of the speeds it was rated for. Speeds like the maniac that had just gone by was driving at. It was probably some crazy teenage girl with a new license and a car full of friends. Charlie growled; he had never been one for road rage, but today had simply not been his day. After another glance behind him at a few other shaken drivers, he switched lanes and floored the gas pedal. She wasn't getting away from him, not that easily.

He caught up with the VW as he came around a second tractor-trailer. They were in an open stretch of the freeway, and the little black Beetle was swerving from lane to lane, like it was trying to hit bonus point targets on a video game. Charlie gripped the steering wheel tighter. If they wanted to play, then so be it. A hundred points for squashing the VW. He pulled up alongside and rolled down his passenger side window. It _was_ a girl driving, he had been right about that much, but she looked a little older than a teenager. Okay, he thought, so it's a crazy _grad school_ girl, on a joyride with her boyfriend, it looked like. It took Charlie a moment to figure out why she looked so funny. She was wearing some sort of red and black get-up with a ruffled collar and sleeves; a matching jester's hat lay on the wide dashboard in front of her. Her face, half-hidden by wavy blonde hair, was painted thickly with white clown makeup and bright lipstick and accented with a black half mask. Charlie puzzled over it a moment, but then again, it _was_ October. Still a little early in the month for a Halloween party, in his opinion, but you never knew. He shrugged and honked the horn to get her attention.

"Hey, lady!" he yelled, shaking his fist at his open passenger window. The girl glanced over at him briefly, with an expression of fiendish amusement on her painted face. She was raising an eyebrow at him as she rolled down her window, as if to say, 'Who, me?' "Yeah, I'm talking to you!" Charlie continued. The girl threw her head back and laughed as she turned her eyes back to the road in front of her.

"What's up, sweetheart?" she simpered in what Charlie called the 'inner-city hoodlum' accent. "Got somethin' on ya mind, or are ya just lookin' for a race?" Charlie jumped as the girl giggled and purposefully swerved over into his lane. She must be some kind of nutcase, he thought. Either that, or drunk. And since she looked like she'd just come from a wild costume party, that one was entirely possible. But she didn't strike Charlie as the gangster or Mafia donna type, so he figured she wasn't hiding any large firearms in her lap. It was probably safe to speak his mind.

"I'm looking to get home in one piece, you maniac!! What's the big idea, are you trying to kill someone?!?" The girl was grinning under her face paint.

"I dunno, sugar, why? Got somebody you want me ta kill?" She laughed hysterically at her own joke, and Charlie thought he heard a chuckle from the Volkswagen's passenger. He growled, digging his nails into the steering wheel.

"THAT'S it!!" he spat, steering closer to the girl's car. "I don't have to take any of your crap, not after the day I've had! Now get your smart a— off the road, you little slut!!" Charlie watched the girl react out of the corner of his eye; her expression turned shockingly vicious.

"BITE me, Baldie!!" she snapped, and without warning, she reached down by her seat and pulled up some object, which she promptly threw in Charlie's direction. She had good aim; the object, which Charlie saw was a fancy black shoe, bounced in through his passenger window and ricocheted around, coming to rest with its stiletto heel embedded in one of the AC vents. _That_ did it. Charlie grabbed at the closest projectile he could find, which happened to be a half-finished bottle of Starbucks Frappuccino; he flung it out his window and then swerved back into his own lane. The glass bottle made solid contact with the Volkswagen's doorframe and shattered, spraying iced coffee all over the girl and her passenger and sending glass shards flying. One piece flew up and nicked the girl's cheek, and she hissed angrily.

"J, do somethin'!" he heard her cry to her passenger. The form in the seat beside her reached out to push a button above the rearview mirror, then lifted himself up in the seat as the car's sunroof hummed open. He stood in the seat, sticking his head and shoulders out of the opening and resting his folded arms nonchalantly on the car's roof.

Charlie's breath stuck in his throat at the sight of the man looking at him. A pair of dark, burning eyes stared at him from deep sockets caked with thick black paint. Wads of matted green hair hung like Spanish moss over a face smeared in white makeup. A crooked grin revealed a menacing row of discolored teeth, and the smile seemed to stretch all the way up to the man's ears. It was made up of twisted bands of scar tissue covered in bright red greasepaint that, coupled with the garish purple overcoat he wore, made him look like some sort of sadistic circus clown; Ronald McDonald meets Freddy Krueger, a Stephen King nightmare stepped out of a book, something like that. Charlie's lip quivered. He knew that face. All of _Gotham_ knew that face. It had been plastered on every TV screen in the city all summer, cackling and grinning and pronouncing threats of mayhem and destruction. Charlie tried and failed to swallow.

"Sorry for the… ah… _young lady_'s behavior, Mac," the Joker called across the gap between the vehicles. "_Student driver_, you understand…." He waved a hand slightly and then began cackling, his scarred and painted cheeks wrinkling up in deep folds. Charlie stared, petrified. The _Joker_. The Joker was a callous, murdering sociopath, void of any feeling, addicted to chaos, Gotham's very own home-grown terrorist, little better than a vicious animal off its leash. And Charlie had just _poked _him. Thrown coffee at him. Yelled at, insulted, and almost injured his (probably equally psychotic) girlfriend. Charlie forgot how to breathe.

"You…. Th… J-… J-… J-…," he stuttered. The Joker's expression was deviously amused.

"J-… J-… J-…," he mocked, then he smacked his painted lips. "That's right, P-P-Porky, I'm the J-J-Joker! Here, have a card!" He pulled a playing card from inside his coat and flung it in Charlie's direction. It fluttered away harmlessly in the wind; but the Joker's quick motion had startled Charlie, and he jerked his wheel left in a desperate attempt to drive away from whatever the murderous clown was throwing at him. His car lurched violently, its right wheels losing contact with the asphalt. Charlie blanched, frantically trying to control his vehicle's erratic movements. It was no use. Charlie screamed as he and his car careened wildly out of their lane and off the highway, crashing through a guard rail and rolling down a rocky embankment.

The Joker watched for a few seconds, savoring the sickly sweet crunch of crushing metal and watching the engine go up like fireworks. That's what the guy gets for having road rage, he thought blandly. Then he began _howling_ with laughter. He eased himself back down into the passenger seat of Harley's VW, hooting and cackling hysterically.

"Oh… oh-ho… oh, Harley," he began as he clutched at his bruised ribs and tried to catch a breath. "He… and then he… woo-ha-ha-ha!!" He stomped his feet like a giddy child, laughing even harder when he noticed Harley was in shock. Turning and lying sideways in the seat, he propped his feet against the window and laid his head in her lap, staring up at her between her arms. "What's up, Doc?" he quipped, eyebrows raised.

"We just killed that guy," she replied mechanically, staring straight ahead. The Joker's expression didn't change.

"Yeah…" he agreed; when Harley didn't say anything else, he wrinkled his nose at her. "Well _technically_, That Guy just killed _himself_ in an attempt to get away from a flying joker card, but…." He waved his long fingers nonchalantly. "Details, details. Hmmph. Be-_sides_. He got frappuccino _aaaalll_ over your new jester suit. And you _told_ me to do something, and I _did_." The Joker closed his eyes and wiggled his head from side to side, pressing his skull into Harley's thigh as if he was snuggling down into a pillow. "Y'know… you're gonna _have_ to get over this whole 'sympathy' bi_t_ if you're gonna hang around me. It's _soooo_ overrated… and it keeps you from enjoying all the _fun_ bits of the job… car chases, machine gun fire, wild explosions…." He opened one eye to peer up at her. Harley glanced down at him before taking a sharp turn.

"Well… I _guess_ it _was_ a pretty cool explosion, wasn't it?" She was attempting a smile; the Joker saw this and began howling with laughter again.

"Woo-ha-ha!! Mm-hmm-hm!! Oh, Harl... you're gonna be _so_ much more fun than my usual goons! And a lot cuter, too…." At that, he sat up suddenly and threw himself fully back into the passenger seat, convulsing with laughter, eyes sparkling with dark hilarity.

Harley knew what had just happened wasn't really funny. But for some reason, she couldn't help giggling along.


End file.
